


But Steve Rogers is an honourable man

by Cartonsofcartoons



Series: Seasoned to taste (Much salt, very savoury) [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Civil War Team Iron Man, Gen, Not Steve Friendly, Obsessive thoughts, not team Cap friendly, petty af
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 01:17:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14884874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cartonsofcartoons/pseuds/Cartonsofcartoons
Summary: Steve attends Tony’s wake and listens as Rhodes delivers his eulogy.





	But Steve Rogers is an honourable man

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Mark Antony's speech in Julius Caesar. I love that speech so freaking much and I think there are a fair few parallels between the events in the play and CA:CW.

 

“We are here to honour, to mourn Anthony Edward Stark.” Rhodey snorted in bitter amusement. “Anthony Edward Stark. That was the name I called him in my head the first month of knowing him. He said ‘Call me Tony’ and I did, but I kept thinking of him as Anthony Edward Stark. I’d read it a few too many times on all the non-disclosure agreements and the million waivers I had to sign because I was rooming with the heir to Stark Industries. Never told him that and...now I never will.”

 

Rhodey swallowed and from his seat in the audience Steve shifted uncomfortably. Knowing the part he had played in Tony’s death he felt more than a little out of place but he'd come anyway to pay his last respects. It was the first bit of news he got once the pardons were signed off on and he and his team were let back in, that while Tony had been steadily recovering since the events in Siberia, he had had a heart attack and slipped into a coma that he hadn’t woken from. The doctors hadn't been able to save him.

 

That Tony was dead.

 

Bucky had been distraught over it. Steve had woken up so many night to Bucky’s screams as the nightmares inundated him. Wanda had gone so far as to say that even beyond the grave Stark was causing them pain and Steve had reprimanded her for that. Besides, it wasn’t Tony’s fault that Pepper had told Bucky the news so viciously.

 

_“Congratulations Soldier, mission complete. All the Starks are dead now.”_

 

He hadn't thought her capable of such spite, hadn’t thought she would be so cruel. Her behaviour had only worsened as she pulled all SI funding and made a very public statement cutting all ties with any personnel remotely associated with the ‘former Avengers’ as she called them. Even now she was pursuing legal action against him, Bucky and all their friends even though the Accords had cleared them of all wrongdoing and cleared their records in anticipation of Thanos. Pepper had set Bucky’s recovery back ages, he kept on talking about taking responsibility for his actions even though Steve had told him over and over again, it wasn’t _him_.

 

"Tony was my friend. My best friend. I could lie and say I’ve never known a better man but I can say with all honesty that he was just so good to me, even when he didn’t have to be. He was a good friend to have, generous to a fault. Even in his last days, he was working, when he couldn’t move from his bed he still managed to work his ass off to make the braces that help me walk today, that are going to help millions who have suffered life changing injuries, regain a huge part of their lives. Even in death Tony is generous. Just being in his presence made you want to do better. He made us believe we were extraordinary because to him we always were. The sun is a yellow dwarf star, water is hydrogen oxide and we were all extraordinary.”

 

Rhodey sighed and Steve heard many a sniffle as people were moved by his words, by the sheer conviction in his voice.  

 

"He was so generous a friend that even under duress, even recovering from a battle, when Sam Wilson told him to go to Siberia to where Steve Rogers was headed after a monstrous rampage through Europe leaving death and destruction in his wake, Tony went. Because he was a good friend.”

 

Steve fidgeted in his seat once again as eyes and cameras turned to him. Rhodes’ words reminded him far too much of Tony’s last words to him and it was only the sight of Bucky sitting next to him that quelled the tightness in his chest.

 

Yes, Tony had been a good friend, just as Bucky was.

 

“Which is not to say that Tony didn’t have faults, of course. Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, he might have been but he was still human. Still flawed. He made mistakes although his mistakes tended to have more consequences than others.”

 

_‘_ Like Ultron’ Steve remembered and nodded his head in agreement. Not that Rhodes would ever say it out loud, of course Steve scoffed in the privacy of his mind.

 

"He made mistakes such as Ultron,” Rhodes said with a deep sigh and Steve was surprised. He _really_  hadn't expected Rhodes to actually talk about Tony’s mistakes. “Yes, Ultron was a result of Tony’s paranoia that the aliens who had once invaded would return eventually. Yes, Loki’s Sceptre was involved, and yes, at the time Ultron had been little more than a rudimentary idea, but Tony was just too _ambitious_ , trying to save the world from this threat. He tried to make up for it of course, tried to redeem himself. Striving for redemption is something so many people in this room understand all too well. Natalia Romanova, the Black Widow and her attempts at clearing the blood from her proverbial ledger from time spent as an assassin and spy, Wanda Maximoff and her attempts at being an Avenger to make up supporting Ultron and causing Dr Banner to hulk out in Johannesburg. Clint Barton and his attempts to make up for killing and injuring so many of his colleagues during the build-up to the Chitauri invasion, the same colleagues who are now joined by others like them who were burned in the SHIELD data dump.”

 

And Steve’s heart began pounding as whispers began. Soft ones, no one wanted to interrupt Rhodey but...the tension in the room was growing and Steve could see more than one angry, questioning look thrown at his friends.

 

“ I don’t know whether Tony deserved a second chance or not. I _certainly_ can’t claim to know why Steve Rogers thought that Tony wasn’t worthy of second chances even when former HYDRA personnel such as Wanda Maximoff were.”

 

Steve cursed in his head as a sharp intake of breath sounded from Bucky next to him. He had kept the information from his friend, not wanting to trigger him and here Rhodey was just letting such sensitive information out to anyone and everyone. What was he thinking? Didn’t he know how much this would hurt Wanda, how much it would hurt Bucky?

 

"But I guess if Captain America says something, you listen. Tony didn’t get the memo I suppose. He didn’t yield as the song told him to and he ended up with a shield to his chest. A great shield, one that his father had made, one that Tony himself had helped restore and make even better. I just wish Tony hadn’t done that. We all knew that his heart was in trouble after all. A child on the street could tell you that, after Afghanistan, after the arc reactor, after all that he’d been through, putting his heart through so much was just so stupid. And if he hadn't done that he would be here right now. Alive and fine.

But he’s not. And as he said himself, a part of him _died_ in that bunker in Siberia as he watched a metal arm strangle his mother. The rest of him followed."

 

No, no, no, no, no! What the hell was Rhodes doing?!

 

“Tony Stark is dead. The people whose lives he touched, whom he saved are scattered across the globe, from New York to Johannesburg, from Sokovia to Leipzig. And we honour that man who left behind a legacy of change, of innovation, a Futurist who refused to stay stuck in the delusion of a glorious past. We honour that man who made himself a suit out of scraps to rescue himself with, even as his heart was filled with shrapnel, even as he was being tortured. We honour the hero who flew a nuclear missile into space, who fought against the Hulk and won, who made engineering breakthroughs even on his deathbed, who revolutionised and privatised peace.

Thank you."

 

The room dissolved into pandemonium and Steve leapt out of his seat and made to follow Rhodes, desperate for answers.

 

 "What the _hell_ was that about?” Steve couldn’t help but demand from the man who casually adjusted his shirt cuffs in a manner so reminiscent of Tony, Steve felt sick.

 

"That was me honouring Tony’s life motto.”

 

“And what would that motto be?” Steve snarled.

 

Rhodes didn’t smile exactly but there was more than a little bit of smugness to the slight quirk of his mouth. “I do **not** forgive. I do **not** forget.”

 

Steve reeled but the cacophony of noises he had left behind in that room was getting louder as people clearly searched for him. He looked back out the passageway for a second and by the time he turned his attention back to Rhodes, the man was walking out. Steve wanted to follow him, but he had different priorities and returned to look for Bucky.

 

He found his friend still sitting in his seat, eyes glazed over as if in a daze. A reporter shoved a microphone in his face and Bucky didn’t even seem to notice. Steve pushed it away with more force than was perhaps necessary as the microphone flew out of the reporter's hand across the room before shattering against the wall but he didn’t care.

 

"Bucky, are you alright?"

 

And Bucky finally looked up, only for his face to twist in anger and revulsion and Steve felt as if in a back alley in Brooklyn struggling for his breath, "Stay the hell away from me,  **Rogers**." He spat out and walked out of the room leaving a stunned and shattered Steve behind.

 

_Et tu, Brute?_

 


End file.
